


better than master of one

by Caelum_Blue



Series: Azula Week 2020 [6]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Conversations, Cousins, Family, Gen, Ozai's A+ Parenting, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:34:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25201744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caelum_Blue/pseuds/Caelum_Blue
Summary: Written for Azula Week 2020. Prompt - Training.Azula doesn't understand why Zuko won't just focus on his firebending. Lu Ten doesn't understand why she doesn't understand.
Relationships: Azula & Lu Ten
Series: Azula Week 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1818433
Comments: 17
Kudos: 124





	better than master of one

**Author's Note:**

> *shrugs* This one came out kinda funny? There's no actual training in it, lol, but they discuss it I guess. Once again, we are taking a look at Azula's giftedness - coupled with her father's demanding personality - and how it affects her mentality when it comes to how people spend their time. The line in Zuko Alone, where she tells Zuko "You waste all your time playing with knives. You're not even good." was an inspiration.
> 
> Title comes from the old idiom "A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one."
> 
> Enjoy!

“I don’t understand why Zuzu likes swords so much.”

Lu Ten looked up from the knife he was turning over in his hands. “...Why?”

“It’s  _ swords. _ He’s a  _ Firebender.” _

“I’m still confused, kid.”

Azula crossed her arms and huffed. She glared at the teakettle and tried to explain. “He’s got  _ fire. _ He shouldn’t  _ need _ anything else.”

Lu Ten laughed. “Our family is full of people who have more weapons than just their fire. Your mom has swords. My mom threw knives. Grandmother was a Yu Yan archer!”

“That doesn’t mean  _ Zuko _ needs something else. Father doesn’t use weapons, neither does Uncle.”

“Eh,” Lu Ten shrugged. “True. Must be a Sozin’s line thing. I’m the only one of us who bothered learning anything else.” He tapped the knife and grinned. “Until now.”

Lu Ten  _ liked _ the fact that Zuko was using swords? “But Zuko doesn’t  _ need _ swords!” Unless it really did turn out that Zuko  _ was _ as disappointing a Firebender as Father thought. 

“No, but they could still come in handy. I don’t need knives, but I’m pretty good at throwing them.” Lu Ten twirled the one he held around his finger a few times.

“But you’re good at throwing knives,” Azula said. “Zuko isn’t good with swords.”

“Well of course he’s not good with swords, Zuli, he only just started learning. It’ll be a while before he’s good at them.”

That sounded stupid. Why waste time working on something that you weren’t good at when there was something else that needed your attention? “He should just stick with his firebending,” she muttered. “He isn’t good at  _ that _ either.”

“Whoa - hey. None of that now. Zuko’s firebending is just fine.”

“Mine’s better.”

“That’s because you’re gifted. Zuko is...average. His firebending skills are good enough for his age.”

But good enough wasn’t  _ good enough. _ “He should spend more time practicing his firebending and less time playing with swords,” she said. “Maybe then he’d learn more.”

Lu Ten frowned. For a long moment it was silent in the garden while he fiddled with his knife. Then the teakettle started making noise - not whistling, Lu Ten never let it get to whistling when he was making green tea. He said you should never boil green tea. But the water inside  _ was _ starting to bubble. He took the kettle off the fire, took the lid off the waiting teapot, and poured the hot water in. He plunked the lid back on when the pot was filled to the point of overflowing, and some of the displaced water splashed out. Then Lu Ten poured more hot water over the top of the teapot, letting it run over the clay surface to warm it up.

“Does your father say stuff like that?” Lu Ten asked gently.

“No,” Azula huffed. Father didn’t need to say  _ anything. _ She could just  _ tell. _ “But Zuko needs to get better at firebending.”

Lu Ten poured the hot water out of the teapot and into a little pitcher sitting to the side. When the teapot was empty, he took the pitcher and poured the water into two tiny teacups, filling them to the brim. “He  _ will _ get better. As he grows older and gets more experienced. That’s how it works.”

“He needs to get better  _ now. I’m _ better than him!”

“And that’s not his fault,” Lu Ten said firmly. “Zuko works very hard, and he’s doing perfectly fine for his age.  _ You’re _ the exception here, and it isn’t fair to compare him to you.”

Well that certainly wasn’t how Father seemed to think.

Lu Ten removed the lid from the warmed-up teapot. “Tea leaves, please.”

Azula handed him the little bowl containing the leaves he’d selected. He took it from her hand and held it up to her nose. “What do you think?”

She sniffed. “Jasmine.”

“Yep.”

“I like jasmine,” she said. “It’s kind of sweet.”

“Floral,” he agreed. He placed the leaves in the pot and retrieved the kettle again. For the second time, the teapot was filled with hot water, more poured over the sides for good measure. “So tell me,” he said, “if you think Zuko shouldn’t bother with swords because he’s not good with them yet, does that mean that  _ you _ shouldn’t ever learn...hm. Lightning? Because you  _ definitely _ won’t be good at it right away.”

“That’s different,” she insisted.

“How so?”

“Because I’m a  _ Firebender. _ I’ll be able to figure lightning out!” Lu Ten looked amused at that declaration, so she clarified, “Zuko’s not a sword master.”

“No one’s ever a master, when they start,” Lu Ten said. “I’m not even an expert knife thrower.” He turned around and frowned at the apple tree behind them. There was a knot a few feet up the trunk, where a branch had been pruned away recently, leaving a little circle of trimmed wood behind. Lu Ten picked his knife up again and peered at the tree trunk carefully as his arm went through some practice motions. Then the knife was flying, and with a  _ thunk _ it hit the wood two inches to the right of the knot. Lu Ten grinned at Azula. “See? I’m not bad, but I’m nowhere near as good as some of my cousins. My aim’s better with fire.” He lifted his hand again, and a little fire dart sparked to life above his fingers. It flew through the air and hit the knot dead-on, leaving a scorched spot behind when it fizzled out. “See?”

“You should stick to fire darts, then,” Azula said. “If you’re better at that.”

Lu Ten looked at her. “Zuli, if we only ever stuck with what we’re good at, we’d never accomplish anything.” He turned his attention to the teapot, which had apparently been steeping the leaves long enough because he poured the tea into the little pitcher. Then he dumped the water that was still sitting in the cups. Now that the cups were warm and empty, he poured the tea into them. There was still some left in the pitcher. “Here,” he said, handing it to her. “Want to do the honors?”

Azula grinned, took the pitcher, and dumped the dregs over the turtleduck tea pet sitting on the side of the tray.

“Good job,” Lu Ten said, and he presented her with one of the tiny teacups. “Enjoy.”

She took it and had a careful sip. The jasmine was delicious. “How do you make such good tea, Lu?”

He gave her an amused look before sipping from his own cup. “Practice.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Kudos and comments are always appreciated.
> 
> Uh, let's see, notes...
> 
> My Lu Ten is semi-competent at knife-throwing because even though he never knew his mom, his maternal grandparents were like "THIS IS A FUN FAMILY BONDING ACTIVITY." He does prefer fire, but knives can come in handy.
> 
> Lu Ten is also starting to....pick up on some things regarding Uncle Ozai at this point. He still thinks the man is just a hopelessly awkward or disinterested father. He's also going to ship out to Ba Sing Se in the not-too-distant future, so he won't have the opportunity to see that Ozai is worse than that. I think that Ozai didn't ramp up his abuse until after Lu Ten - the family member most involved with the kids besides Ursa - was out of the way. For now it's just words and statements he makes to his children that could be taken many ways, and he's reaping so much benefit from that doubt.
> 
> Regarding Azula, she just...does not understand why Zuko won't stick to what he's good (or at least semi-decent) at. In her opinion, the point isn't to learn different things - the point is to be good at what she knows. Zuko keeps trying to learn other stuff and looking dumb as a result. That's not how you keep Ozai happy. Lu Ten is kind of seeing her thought process but doesn't quite comprehend it, and he's trying to explain how her current worldview is a little skewed, but it's not really working. Have you ever had a conversation with a young child where you try to explain something, and they come away with the completely wrong understanding of it and there's nothing you can do and you just stand there staring at them as they accept this new fact and refuse to listen to your clarifications? Yeah that's what's going on here, basically.
> 
> And I based Lu Ten's tea brewing motions on this tea ceremony video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3tA3fFCP34&feature=emb_title
> 
> Confession time: Tomorrow's prompt has been fighting me A LOT, so it probably will not be posted in the morning. I'm hoping to have it up in the evening, but failing that I'll shoot for sometime on Sunday or next week. *shrugs*


End file.
